


Mired Down

by wednesday



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dubious Consent, Eventual Smut, Hate Sex, Held Down, Inquisitor Fenris (Dragon Age), M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:13:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24902881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/pseuds/wednesday
Summary: Fenris acquires a glowing green hand.Fenris meets an Altus in Redcliffe. What follows is unexpected, to none more than to Fenris himself.
Relationships: Fenris/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 7
Kudos: 90
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	Mired Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SouthernContinentSkies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernContinentSkies/gifts).



The Magister threw a spell at Fenris, and he should have _known_ and– 

“–No!” A flash of green like sickness and then red like agony, agony, _agony_ – 

“–of the Elder One! Where–” 

Fenris fell and then tried to rise, hands and knees in stale water, slipping on rough stone. The sound of steel against steel. He could see the mage, Pavus, throw a fireball at the guards attacking them, then another one. Then everything fell silent but for the sound of blood rushing in Fenris’ ears, spreading fire through his veins. 

He grit his teeth and stood up. Just in time too; Pavus looked like he was staring into the distance, at something only he could see, and muttering some magic nonsense to himself. 

“Mage,” Fenris growled harshly, hoping it would do well enough at covering his weariness. He could barely stand, he didn’t relish the thought of fighting an Altus turned abomination just then. And of course, he had no idea where he was. 

“Oh! Yes, I think the rift threw us through time. Rather violently, after I tried to counter Alexius’ spell,” Pavus said, like continuing a conversation they had in fact not been having, but Fenris didn’t care to know any more about the time magic. He was already hearing more than he cared to. 

“How. Do we get back?” Fenris’ voice carried enough threat for anyone with any sense to get away. Pavus only stepped closer and replied almost cheerfully. 

“We explore the castle, of course! Find out where, when we are,” he said and moved to the gate the guards must have come through while Fenris was blind with pain. He was still half blind with it, which might have saved Pavus from being stabbed, when he said, “Don’t worry, I’m here and I’ll protect you!” 

Fenris walked slowly, carefully behind the mage and focused on keeping his steps in a somewhat straight line. The pain didn’t really abate much, but Fenris got better at hiding it by the time they had ascended the stairs to someplace not flooded. He would show any weakness to a Tevinter mage over his dead body. 

“So, Herald,” Pavus started, and Fenris growled and hoped futilely that it would dissuade him from making conversation. “With all the excitement with Alexius I never did get to ask you – why _did_ you come back? I got the distinct impression when last we met that you wouldn’t ever set foot in Redcliffe again, if you had any say in it.” 

Fenris had thought so too, so he really couldn’t blame the mage for assuming. He’d believed he was leaving and letting all the mages deal with their own idiocy right until the moment he’d been staring at a map, Cullen and Leliana arguing about the best course of action. And then he’d still believed it when he’d slammed his hand on the table to silence everyone, but the words that had come out of his mouth were, “We’re going to Redcliffe.” 

Oh how he now wished someone had argued with him then. 

“I’m honestly not sure what gave me that impression – perhaps the attempt at stabbing me? Or maybe the rather emphatic way you swore and told everyone in that chantry to go fuck themselves before you stalked off? It was all quite subtle, it was, but there were signs, you understand.” 

Fenris stayed silent, ignoring the taunt. When Pavus looked back over his shoulder, mirth in his eyes, Fenris said, “Go fuck yourself,” and stalked past the mage. The pain was finally getting almost manageable. 

The clear startled laughter behind him almost made him pause. That had not been the… Fuck. He had only been in Pavus’ company for minutes, not even an hour, and he already regretted it with all his being. 

“Ah, well, none of the stories I’d heard before coming here did you justice,” Pavus said. Fenris didn’t care much what stories got told about him, other than not wanting any stories to be told at all. 

“We were already here, I didn’t feel like finding out what state we’d find the place, if we left for Therinfall,” Fenris drawled. 

It wasn’t a lie, Fenris absolutely had no wish to see how much destruction a Magister with an army or mages could sow in a few weeks. It was just not the full truth, which was that Fenris had no idea why he’d chosen to come back. Meeting Alexius, followed by Pavus had been like a nightmare come true. And yet Fenris had come back, just to have more taste of a living nightmare. He could feel the sickly humming of the red lyrium in his bones. 

“Mmm, something not far off from what we’re seeing now, would be my guess,” Pavus said almost absently. The ever present unbearable smugness and mirth in his voice were for once absent. He stayed silent after that. 

Fenris kept a solid grip on his sword and watched the mage for any sign of danger more than he watched the halls around them. 

That’s how the abomination got the better of him, or so he hoped. A small ring of guards burst out of a well hidden door and surrounded them, led by a mage that started flinging spells without bothering to ask who they were. 

Pavus flung magic right back, and Fenris cut down the first guard reckless enough to step into his range. He cut down the second, too, not much of a challenge. Right when his hand phased through the chest and crushed the heart of the third, a wave of magic washed over him followed by an instant wave of hurt so intense he was knocked to his knees again. He barely managed to lean back in time to avoid a blade to his face. 

He heard shouting, then fire and then once again silence. 

“What in the– Are you hurt, Herald?” Pavus asked, suspicious concern in his voice. 

“Get your hands off me,” Fenris gritted out and tried to stand. He couldn’t use his left hand at all, and he would rather die than let his sword go, so it took more than a little effort to get back up. “What did you do?” The abomination had been dead, there shouldn’t have been anyone throwing magic at Fenris. 

“Just a barrier,” Pavus said with too much concern aimed at Fenris and not nearly enough at the sword Fenris was trying to raise. “Are you sure you’re well? You look dreadful.” 

Fenris didn’t exert the effort required to answer. Instead he got up and started walking in the direction he hoped would lead them to the great hall. Fuck magic, he hated it, but it had never been so bad before the Conclave, before the green light had settled in his hand and started to leak some kind of poison into the lyrium in his skin. It had always been painful, a constant ache that got worse when he used it, but now… Every time he got hit with magic felt like getting raked over red hot coals. 

Pavus stayed blessedly silent. The silence had an edge of apprehension, and Fenris hated that, too. 

They had barely made two dozen steps when another abomination, no, a demon burst out of the ground in the middle of the hall. Fenris stabbed it, but the momentum carried him further, slammed his shoulder in the wall, and his left hand hit the hard cold stones–– 

Everything went white. He knew this kind of agony, molten metal pouring, pooling into his skin. He stopped – feeling, thinking, everything. 

– 

Green shapes were moving ominously somewhere in the distance. Fenris blinked. Opened his eyes. 

He was on a bed, in a room that would be almost homey, if not for the persistent red–orange–anger chittering of lyrium still permeating the air. He tensed, took notice of all the pains and aches still there, but slightly dimmer than before. 

The mage was at a desk, his back to Fenris, speaking some nonsense under his breath. 

Fenris looked around carefully. No one else was around, no guards, no mad Magisters. His sword was on the bed next to him. He was well enough to lift it, to take a swing at the mage before he knew what was happening. He could. Fenris hesitated. He could also pretend weakness until a better moment presented itself. 

“–intelligible. Oh! You’re awake,” the mage exclaimed. “Excellent, here, take this.” He pushed a vial of dark liquid into Fenris’ hand and turned back to the desk. 

“What did you do while I took a nap, you ask? Well, other than practicing my very rusty potion–making skills, I found some fascinating correspondence.” Fenris absolutely had not asked. He looked at the vial with suspicion, then back at the mage, with even more suspicion. 

“What is this.” He knew he was lacking the right inflection. 

Pavus glanced at him, at the vial in his hand. “Pain relief potion. My skills are, I must shamefully confess, subpar. But it didn’t seem like healing magic, at which I am only marginally better than potions anyway, would help you.” 

Fenris stared at him not bothering to hide any of his distrust, but the mage shrugged it off like water and looked back to the papers in his hand. 

“Now, this is quite informative. We shall have to go back down to the dungeons, I’m afraid. More than that, I don’t think you will like what we’ll most likely find there.” 

Fenris, not yet done with distrustful staring, hid the vial of potion in his belt while Pavus was looking away. 

“What.” 

Pavus winced faintly and Fenris felt his scowl deepen. “Ah, your companions from earlier today. As best as I can tell, we are currently one year in the future.” 

Fenris gripped his sword tighter and got up. The pain was manageable now. Just a little above the kind he always lived with, nothing as devastating as before. If Pavus had been trying to poison him, he’d show his hand soon enough. If he hadn’t, Fenris still wasn’t taking any potions. 

“And you’re up, of course you are. Wait, don’t you want to find out what else–” 

Pavus was back to sounding smug and amused by everything. 

Fenris ignored him and walked out the room and turned back towards the dungeons. That was already a concession. One he shouldn’t have made. 

He hadn’t woken up in a cell or at the feet of the Magister. His grip on his sword remained tight, but didn’t bother watching the mage. 

– 

“What were you thinking, letting mages loose with no oversight?” Cullen’s question, nay, demand, hit Fenris the moment he walked into the room. With a mounting pain at his temples he realized – there went his one last hope at getting some peace and quiet today. If it wasn’t to be found in the chantry, he would find it nowhere in all of Haven. 

“I was thinking,” Fenris drawled, not putting any effort into hiding how much he agreed with Cullen, “that you would take care of the abominations as necessary. Have we not Templars training in the yard? I’ve yet to walk five steps outside without seeing one.” 

Of course, Cullen of all people knew the dangers, and if anything Fenris thought even he was underestimating them. They’d spent a decade in the same hellhole, and Fenris could imagine how Cullen might be surprised at Fenris’ decision. Fenris was surprised at it too, when he tried to consider it objectively, as a single event instead of the chain of inexplicably questionable decisions, where allying with the mages was only the final step. 

Something much more vicious than simple nausea churned inside his gut at the thought of all those mages, running free, and now headed to the one place he had close to a sanctuary. 

As much as any place that had a cell and chains with his name on them underground could be a sanctuary. He’d had worse. 

“That’s hardly enough–” 

“Do you want to be in charge of them?” He asked and watched Cullen pale with something between fear and queasiness. Fenris knew how inadequate their number of Templars was; he’d personally killed more over his years in Kirkwall than were currently in the Inquisition’s employ, even if he wasn’t mad enough to admit that to a Templar and a Seeker. “Because I would rather jump into a rift than be made responsible for the mages.” 

“That’s an exaggeration, surely, but it is true we don’t have the numbers to hold them prisoner. The only thing worse than taking them prisoner would be doing that and then not being able to follow through.” Leliana clearly had no understanding of how deeply skin-crawling he found the thought. It was naive of her to think the mages wouldn’t make enemies of themselves without the additional provocation, as well, but Fenris didn’t feel like explaining either issue in more detail. 

“They are our responsibility regardless, now that you have made them our allies. Any indiscretion on their part will reflect negatively on the Inquisition.” 

“There are many ways to present this in a positive light for the Inquisition,” Josephine objected. 

“I don’t care about our reputation, I care about the damage–” 

Cassandra drew a deep breath and before she could throw whatever her addition to this headache would be, Fenris spoke loud enough to interrupt Cullen and draw everyone’s attention from being at each other’s throats to the one person they had against his advice in their collective madness given the power to make decisions for their whole organization. They’d had every chance to choose someone who wasn’t Fenris; they had no right to be upset he’d done exactly what they’d told him to. _Not exactly what they’d told you to do_ , a sly voice whispered in a dark corner of his mind. _What you chose._ He ignored it. 

“Then we should get on with closing that giant hole in the sky. The sooner we do the sooner we will be rid of them.” Fenris had the uncomfortable suspicion he was so tired that the sharpness in his voice didn’t carry and he ended up sounding disgustingly responsible. Instead of, say, really fucking murderous to be in this position where he had to be the one _defending_ the _mages_. The decision to ally with mages. 

He left the room before he got roped into the planning of things he knew and wanted to know nothing about. When the time came, he was sure someone would come find him and his magical hand. 

The moment he stepped out, he almost ran into Dorian. Many years of practice made him go still and not show any reaction, positive or negative. Or really fucking negative. 

“The voice of reason! I thought you would all be trapped inside that drab room in your circular argument until the end of time.” 

“Pavus. What are you doing here?” Fenris had a suspicion he already knew, and _no_. 

“I’ve come to see this through to the end, of course!” Dorian announced cheerfully, and Fenris felt his hands itch with the urge to punch someone or something. It seemed to be a permanent condition of being anywhere in Dorian’s proximity. 

Then Dorian’s face lost some of that annoying smugness and turned more serious. 

“Felix has left for Weisshaupt.” He tilted his head in something like gratitude and Fenris wanted no part of it. Not here and not from him. 

All he’d done was ask if Felix was choosing death over being a Warden out of pride or fear. He’d even injected a reasonable amount of poison into those words. Only it had turned out that in all his searches, the Magister had never come across the fact becoming a Warden _could_ save his son. 

“All the Wardens closer than there seem to have vanished, as if by magic. I considered going with him, but really, at least one of us should stay and make sure this whole rift in the sky end time Tevinter cultist mess is dealt with.” 

It was clear by the way he said ‘one of us’ that he meant someone from Tevinter. Fenris was almost grateful that Dorian wasn’t counting him in that group, even if only because Fenris had almost eviscerated him for it the first time they met. In another chantry. Somehow it struck Fenris as strange, that he kept meeting this Altus in chantries. 

He could have sent him away. None of the people still arguing on the other side of the door would argue that decision. Maybe it was because Dorian no longer called him Tevinter, or maybe because of the vivid memory of Dorian taking care of Fenris, helping him when no one else could, when Fenris did not expect him to, but Fenris let him stay. 

Maybe it was just madness finally overtaking Fenris’ common sense. 

“Make yourself useful then, Pavus, if you know how.” 

“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine! Is this something that happens to one’s manners, if one stays in the South too long? What a charming place, I look forward to seeing what it’ll do to _me_.” 

Fenris left without listening to what other useless chatter would follow. If he was lucky it would be enough to insult Dorian into leaving Fenris alone until they were done with… everything. 

– 

Of course it didn’t work like Fenris wanted it to – if anything, his disinterest seemed to spur Dorian on. 

Every time he walked through Haven, Dorian materialized out of thin air to annoy him. He didn’t try to drag Fenris into any kind of kinship based on their place of origin, but that didn’t stop him from enthusiastically starting up conversations where he tried to recount his own opinion of Tevinter. His opinions of Tevinter were, as expected, complete shit that Fenris didn’t want to hear. 

At first he thought it was some attempt to disquiet him. Ultimately he decided Dorian was trying to be friendly, of all things, and for some unfathomable reason thought Fenris would want to hear anything he had to say, especially about Tevinter. 

When by some miracle he ran out of things to say about that (or maybe he had finally figured out what it meant that Fenris kept leaving in the middle of conversation with increasingly more flimsy excuses or no excuses at all), Dorian went on and shared all his unsolicited opinions on Ferelden and the South. That was somehow worse, because some of those Fenris agreed on. 

The day some witty bite at the local customs made Fenris so startlingly amused he almost laughed out loud, Fenris destroyed two training dummies with his sword and another one with his bare hands. The lyrium overuse made his arms burn like all the lines had been newly re-cut into his flesh. The awe and fear in the faces of the recruits training in the yard made it worth it, even if Cullen was looking at him with faint disapproval. 

Then Fenris glanced up and saw Dorian on the palisade, watching the display as well, but with something deeply interested, focused in his constantly amused expression. 

Fenris felt a jolt of something dark curl through his chest and gut. Something not quite violent, but similar enough that it took him a moment to recognize it. 

He cursed, left and spent the rest of the day in the chantry basement. It was cold and Fenris absolutely hated it, but no one ever came looking for him there, which was the point. 

When Dorian started trying to buy him drinks at the tavern, Fenris grit his teeth, turned around and left without a word. 

“Well, that’s just rude. Not that I would blame a man dying of thirst for refusing this swill, but really. It’s–” 

Fenris changed his mind, turned around, grabbed the front of Dorian’s robe and dragged him outside the tavern. Dorian didn’t protest, though Fenris would have loved to have some excuse to use more force. When Fenris pushed him against the wall, Dorian didn’t look nearly as concerned as he should have. 

“Well. Fancy meeting you here,” he said, insinuation dripping from his voice. Fenris had no doubt he could have made that sound a lot more suggestive, if he’d tried, and he hated that he knew Dorian well enough to be sure. 

“Stop,” Fenris growled into Dorian’s face. He could kill Dorian here, in this shaded corner of Haven and very likely no one would say a word about it. He was sure both of them knew it. And Dorian’s smile was sharper, but he showed no sign of fear. To Fenris he looked more like a man delighted to be thrown a challenge. Fenris cursed under his breath. 

“Stop trying.” 

“That’s rather vague, don’t you think?” Dorian objected with a lightness that was definitely faked. 

“You are here because you were the lesser evil, Pavus. Do not mistake that for me liking you.” Fenris waited for a few moments to make sure Dorian had heard him. Then he let go of his robes and stepped back. 

“Ah, so it’s not that kind of meeting, is it?” 

Ignoring the insinuation, Fenris turned away and left, but not fast enough to not hear the rest of what Dorian said. 

“I haven’t been under the impression that we’re friends, dear Herald.” That, finally, echoed with some of the sharpness of Dorian’s smile. Fenris ignored how Dorian’s voice curled around ‘dear Herald’. 

That was predictably not the end of it. In any way. 

“Heard you had a scuffle with Sparkler.” 

“Hmm,” was all the answer Fenris dignified that with. He wasn’t surprised Varric already had a nickname for Dorian, and he still hated it. 

“Want me to put a bolt into him?” Varric asked. Fenris knew he asked it in jest, but likewise he was certain Varric would do it, if Fenris seriously said yes. Non-lethal, because Varric was at the end of the day still Varric. 

“Not necessary,” Fenris said without looking up, and continued fletching one of said bolts. Varric was silent for a minute on the other side of the fire, doing the same thing. 

“So you put the fear of the Maker into him already?” 

Fenris paused when reaching for a new bolt. Then shook himself, got on with it and absolutely did not think about putting anything into Dorian. Ugh. 

“Something like that.” 

They worked in comfortable silence for a while. 

“The Seeker ask you about Hawke again?” 

Fenris grimaced in lieu of an answer, and Varric nodded in commiseration. 

“Yeah. Haven’t the faintest where she should go looking, either,” the lie rolled off Varric’s tongue as easy as breathing. Fenris always relied on his glare to do the work for him. If he glared enough, everyone assumed he was angry at Hawke, and then assumed someone so angry at Hawke would surely reveal it, if he knew where Hawke was. 

Fenris absolutely was angry at Hawke in ways his glare was utterly inadequate at conveying, but that didn’t mean he had any intention of telling anyone anything he knew. 

– 

There were still rifts in Hinterlands, and a dozen tasks that Fenris thought were pointless, but that Josephine and Leliana insisted were crucial to their success. Fenris ended up traveling from one side of the place to the other and back again with Cassandra and Varric, and more often than not Dorian. 

Dorian, because the other option was taking Solas with them, and Fenris absolutely hated Solas’ opinions on mages, Fade, demons and every other thing Solas was interested in sharing an opinion about. Which was about all the things Fenris had no interest at all. Varric had laughed when Fenris had complained about Solas managing to be more unbearable than a Tevinter Altus. It was true, however, so Fenris said “No,” when his advisers said “take Solas with you,” and then said “Dorian,” when he was told in no uncertain terms he needed to have a mage along. 

That momentarily silenced the room. Fenris ignored both Leliana’s intense scrutiny and everyone else’s silent bafflement. No one quite asked outright if Fenris had a problem with Dorian or why he was taking him along and not Solas. Since Fenris found everyone’s tip-toeing around the subject amusing in a pathetic way, he didn’t say anything to clear it up either. 

– 

“I have been informed we’re leaving this frozen mountain tomorrow, you and I,” Dorian said the next time Fenris didn’t manage to avoid him in the streets of Haven. 

“As I said, make yourself useful.” 

Dorian laughed, and the sound rang mostly true. It made Fenris feel something, as almost everything Dorian did. Usually that feeling was violence. Sometimes it wasn’t. 

– 

Hinterlands were okay, if one ignored the rebel mages summoning demons and turning into abominations around every corner, and the rebel Templars going mad with lyrium and attacking everyone in sight. And the Fade rifts spewing out demons in every other field and copse of trees. And the carta and bandits, and on occasion wild bears attacking everyone they came across. 

Fenris considered leaving the place to burn, but even Varric looked disapproving, when he suggested it. 

“Burning the place down might raise the temperature to almost bearable. I think I’m going to have to agree with our Herald here, some light incineration would do wonders for this place.” Dorian sat by the fire, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and seemed to be warming up to Fenris’ idea. 

“No. We are not burning the Hinterlands,” Cassandra declared with finality. “Or any other place.” 

“Really, Seeker, there’s nowhere you’d like to burn off the map?” Varric asked, and oh. His voice. Fenris recognized it. Varric liked Cassandra. Fenris knew Varric well enough to know it didn’t and wouldn’t make Varric say anything about Hawke’s whereabouts, but suddenly he felt another wave of new anger at Hawke for putting them in this position where a shadow was hanging over every new friend he and Varric might make. 

Cassandra paused in her task of skinning a bear with a thoughtful expression. “Maybe Antiva.” 

“Seeker! I am _shocked_!” 

Fenris left Varric, Cassandra and Dorian to the bickering and spent the rest of the night laying down and staring at the dark fabric of the tent above him. He hadn’t expected to stay long enough to make new friends. Not here, in the Inquisition, and not anywhere else. Maybe it was Kirkwall and not Hawke hanging like a ragged shadow over them all. 

– 

Dorian was the kind of mage that liked to show off. Fenris should have known this – had known this from the day they met in Redcliffe, but somehow he had forgotten how much it set his teeth on edge to witness it. 

He had also, with varying success, blocked out the memory of the events inside the castle. 

Dorian twirled magic around with an ease that Fenris had never seen in the South, not from Hawke or Anders, or any apostate or circle mage he’d ever met or fought. It set loose inside him both fear and anger that Fenris had little control over. 

For all the flashiness and flair, Dorian never threw his magic anywhere near Fenris. At first it might have been a coincidence, that they never ended up near one another during a fight, but there were only so many times it could happen before Fenris noticed it wasn’t accidental at all. 

Fenris said nothing. Cassandra, however, did say something. 

“Dorian, why do you not put barriers on the Herald? Solas said nothing about the mark interfering with such magic.” Her voice was a compromise between an accusation and genuine interest. 

Fenris felt a strong urge to push her into the next river they came across 

Dorian glanced at Fenris with an unreadable expression before looking back at Cassandra. Anyone else might get suspicious at the time it took Dorian to come up with an answer, but Cassandra often took time to choose her words herself. 

“Tevinter magic is, you must have noticed, quite different from Solas’. I’m sure none of us wants to find out if it has any potentially, ah, _explosive_ reactions with our Herald’s magical reading light.” It sounded reasonable. Of course, Fenris knew it was a lie, but Cassandra would believe it, he thought. “I will risk it, if it’s a matter of emergency, but I would advise no unnecessary magic be cast on or around the mark. It could react... unpredictably.” 

“Good.” Cassandra nodded, satisfied. Dorian looked at Fenris, and Fenris looked back and they both knew the truth. That was the end of it. 

That was not the end of it. 

As if Cassandra’s question had jinxed them, two days later Dorian did cast a barrier on Fenris to stop several arrows from piercing straight through his chest. 

The pain that washed through him as he felt the magic touch his skin made Fenris stagger. The agony in his marked hand almost made him scream. Dorian threw fireballs at two of the archers, and Varric shot the other two with a grim expression. Fenris did his best to stay upright. The fight was over in minutes, but the pain had barely receded. 

For the rest of the evening, which was thankfully rapidly approaching night, Fenris made sure to walk at the back of the group. Dorian glanced at him every now and then. Every time he did, Fenris wanted to be angry, but the pain was too tiring to allow for anything else. He had thought he was used to it, after all these years. It only went to show things could always be worse. 

When they got to the camp, Fenris excused himself as soon as he could without making it suspicious. When he crawled into his tent with a sigh and collapsed, some small cool object was digging into his cheek. Fenris ignored it for several minutes, before it started to bother him too much. 

It was a potion. 

Someone had left a potion on his pillow. 

Fenris left the tent another hour later, after spending enough time lying unmoving to reduce the pain to almost bearable. It didn’t take long to find Dorian. No one else was around, so Fenris didn’t bother with subtlety and just like in Haven dragged Dorian further away from the camp by the front of his robes. 

Dorian once again complied, and when his back hit a tree, looked at Fenris and sighed. 

“This still isn’t that kind of meeting, is it?” Fenris ignored both the question and the pretend-disappointment on Dorian’s face. 

“What is this?” he asked and shoved the potion at Dorian. 

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” he replied airily. “It does look a lot like a pain relief potion, would you look at that.” He barely glanced at the vial before making that observation, so Fenris was sure Dorian had been the one to put it there. 

Fenris looked at him and considered if he wanted to know what Dorian would say, if Fenris asked ‘Why’. Dorian looked back steadily. Fenris decided he didn’t have the energy to deal with whatever new madness this conversation might cause. He let go and returned to the camp hastily, Dorian following at a more leisurely pace. 

Varric was sitting by the fire, when they got back. His eyebrows rose impossibly high, when he noticed them. Fenris frowned and looked back at Dorian. Whose clothes looked the most rumpled anyone had probably ever seen him in, and whose hair was slightly mussed. From Fenris dragging him along and pushing him against a tree, he knew, and it took him a while to understand what Varric was seeing. 

Him and Dorian returning together from the woods, Dorian rumpled, not enough for them to have fought, but just enough for… Fenris rolled his eyes at Varric, and without a word disappeared back into his tent. And tried to ignore the way his heart beat too fast and his gut twisted strangely. 

He knew what it meant – he might have wanted to stab Dorian whenever he opened his mouth and most days even when he didn’t, but sometimes he also really wanted to _stab_ him. Fenris shook his head to dissolve the thought. It was– something. He might have let himself turn it around in his mind, if it was anyone else. It wasn’t though, so Fenris made himself stop. 

Instead he looked at the potion, deceptively small in his hand. 

After a minute of fruitless staring that yielded no information whatsoever, Fenris uncorked the vial and drank it. For the next several minutes he cursed himself for stupidity as the pain slowly receded until all that was left was a dull ache radiating from his mark. 

– 

“This. This is the place we should burn off the face of Thedas,” Varric grumbled. 

“Agreed,” Blackwall and Dorian spoke almost at the same time. The only reason Fenris didn’t join them was because he was busy trying to spit out every drop of the muddy mire water that had gotten into his mouth when one of the undead had tried to drown him. 

Fallow Mire was miserable. The most miserable place in all of Thedas, and Fenris hated it with a passion he had not expected to be able to feel towards any one place. Certainly no place outside Tevinter. 

The only reason he hadn’t yet declared their mission failed and turned back was the amount of mages that he knew were waiting for them back at Haven. They had been arriving in preparation for whatever they were going to attempt to do to the breach, their numbers steadily increasing until Fenris refused to stay. He took the first mission more worthwhile than someone complaining about a missing druffalo and left with a warning to not send for him unless they were ready to close the breach. 

Cassandra had stayed to help Cullen deal with the mages, but now Fenris had a suspicion she might have known more about this place than the rest of them. 

Fenris’ opinion of the place dropped even lower when amidst all the undead, it turned out the mire also had apostate abominations. 

Dorian had gotten increasingly good at keeping all of his magic away from Fenris, and he was almost certain, keeping their enemies’ magic away from him as well. This time, however, it wasn’t enough. Before the fight was over, the abomination hit Fenris square in the chest with lightning. His armor absorbed the damage, but the magic– Fenris would have rather taken a real lightning bolt to chest with no armor to protect him, than suffered the magic currently seeping into his skin and blinding him with agony. 

When Blackwall beheaded the last demon, Fenris was on his knees. Then, before Varric and Blackwall turned his way, Dorian pulled him up sharply. 

“Everyone okay?” Varric called out. 

“I’m no expert,” Dorian said, and made a show of inspecting Fenris’ chest, “but I expect our dear Herald will need new armor.” Dorian lightly poked at the smoking gouges in the metal. 

Fenris wanted to push him away, stop him from standing almost chest to chest with him, but Dorian’s hand, still inconspicuously braced against his side was still the only thing stopping him from falling over. Fenris breathed deeply until the worst of it was over and he could stand up on his own. The moment he could, he swatted at Dorian’s hand. Dorian stepped back with a laugh and continued pretending ignorance. 

Then he spent the next half an hour complaining loudly about everything from the water and the cold and _the water_ to the undead, which Fenris had the unpleasant suspicion Dorian didn’t even mind. Fenris, already half a step from stabbing him on a good day, was clutching at his sword and only the strength of his will kept him from murdering Dorian on the spot for all the noise constantly aggravating the headache. 

“And– Oh, would you look at that! A camp! I think I’m too exhausted to keep going,” Dorian droned on, and changed direction towards the alcove in the cliffs where a couple of Inquisition tents were visible. He walked suspiciously fast for an exhausted man. 

“I think I’ll have to stay here, rest for a while.” 

“There are several hours yet before nightfall,” Blackwall objected with little enthusiasm. “We could scout ahead until the next,” he motioned at a dark formation of rocks barely visible above the dark water, “island.” 

“Oh, but of course,” Dorian looked at the Inquisition scouts sitting by the sputtering fire. “Well, you could take the professionals with you while I stay here and attempt to get all this mud off me.” 

“Don’t know how I feel about leaving you here alone, Sparkler.” 

“Oh, is that concern in your voice, Varric?” Dorian goaded. Then he turned to Fenris and said, as if he’d only just then thought of it, “Our Herald can keep me company. He can sit around and glare at rain, I’m sure nothing will come near this place with all that… _sword_ guarding me,” Dorian ran his eyes over Fenris’ sword, even if his voice sounded like he was talking about something else. 

Fenris ground his teeth and stayed silent. He could still see double, he didn’t trust his own voice. 

“Ah,” Blackwall was uncertain, but Dorian tried to pick up where he’d left his Warden questions off earlier in the day, and Blackwall suddenly seemed a lot more amenable to leaving Dorian and him at the camp. Varric shook his head and left to talk to the scouts as well. 

Fenris sat down slowly and waited in silence until the others left, leaving only him, Dorian and almost certainly at least one more scout somewhere hidden from sight. 

“Stop trying to help,” Fenris ground out. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Dorian opened his pack and started rummaging. It didn’t take long until he found whatever he was after, which turned out to be– a potion vial. Again. It looked the same as the one he’d left on Fenris’ pillow once. 

“Here,” he said and passed it to Fenris. “I should figure out how to carry them on my person,” Dorian muttered quietly to himself as Fenris downed the potion. 

The agony went down to pain and down to just an ache soon enough. 

“Now that this lovely rain has washed the mud off us, what do you say to maybe getting out of the fucking endless water?” Dorian got up and made his way to one of the tents without asking for an answer. He also, for the first time all day, sounded genuinely done with the mire and everything in it. 

Fenris waited another minute, but he wasn’t about to suffer hours of cold water falling on him just to keep distance from Dorian. 

When he got inside the tent, Dorian was halfway undressed already and cursing viciously at the wet clothes. Fenris took his armor off – the breastplate was in one piece, but it would definitely need a replacement as soon as possible – then the wet clothes until he was left in just underwear. He got his knife from his boot. Then thought better of it and put it down. His hands had always been more dangerous as any blade, for as long as he could remember. 

Dorian was still struggling with his waterlogged and horrifically impractical robes. Fenris waited for him to finish the struggle. When Dorian was clad in just smallclothes, Fenris pushed him into the blankets, hand on his chest to keep him down, and growled. 

“You are our valiant leader, o Herald,” Dorian said, edges in his voice sharpening with every word, until he sounded both mocking and dangerous. “Our religious icon, even. It is in mine and all our interests that you appear invincible. Without weaknesses. Don’t mistake that for me helping _you_.” 

Fenris growled again, and put his hand against Dorian’s throat. He didn’t put any pressure on it, but he knew Dorian had seen him phase his hand inside someone’s chest and crush their heart. 

Dorian, still not nearly afraid as he should be, as Fenris wanted him to be, ran his eyes down Fenris’ body, looked meaningfully at the hand on his bare chest. 

“So this time it is that kind of meeting,” he said half as a question, half as an observation. 

And Fenris. Fenris growled, clenched his fingers around Dorian’s neck and pressed his lips to Dorian’s as viciously as he could. Dorian kissed back without a moment’s hesitation. Fenris sucked on Dorian’s lower lip and then bit down as hard as he could without breaking skin. Dorian groaned so loudly Fenris was sure the rain and the tent wouldn’t muffle the sound completely. 

Fenris lowered himself, pressed his thighs between Dorian’s. Both their cocks were rapidly hardening. Fenris rocked his hips forward and they both groaned as their lengths were pressed together, only thin damp fabric between them. 

Fenris broke the kiss and bit Dorian’s shoulder. Then left a string of bites across his collarbones. 

There was something here that kindled Fenris’ anger like oil on fire. That Dorian was here, that he was someone Fenris would have wanted, could have even liked, if it had been _anyone_ else. Anyone that wasn’t a mage of Tevinter. The want was there anyway, the dark molasses curling between his lungs and his gut and pushing him forward, closer. 

“And Varric told me I wouldn’t like you angry,” Dorian said with a breathless laugh that flowed seamlessly into a moan when Fenris bit his chest. 

“Shut up,” Fenris growled and bit down again. 

“Mmm, how about this – make me,” Dorian offered in return. He sounded challenging. Any other day Fenris could easily walk away from a challenge, but tonight and always all he already wanted _was_ to make Dorian shut up. The dark violent thing in Fenris’ gut curled tighter when he realized he _could_. There was nothing Dorian could do to stop him. Magic, but since the mark Fenris could feel magic being drawn the moment a mage _thought_ about a spell. Dorian’s magic would never be faster than Fenris’ lyrium. 

He let go of Dorian’s neck and instead captured his wrists, squeezed and held them up above Dorian’s head. Fenris wanted to make him do all kinds of things, wanted to do all kinds of things to him. And Dorian was lying pliant under him, bruises already starting to purple his skin, looking content to let Fenris do any of those things. More than content, he looked impatient. 

Fenris pressed all of his weight down against Dorian, trapped him with it. Tightened his grip on Dorian’s wrists. 

Fenris _wanted_. 

And he would have what he wanted. 

There was a tension in Dorian’s arms when Fenris changed his grip to one hand and with the other ripped the last of their clothes off. Fenris felt the faintest current of magic gather in Dorian’s hands and then dissipate before Fenris did anything about it. He growled in warning. Felt how Dorian shivered in response, still not as afraid as he should be. 

Their cocks rubbed together when Dorian rolled his hips, pressed up against Fenris. It felt good, just the right edge of too much friction. But Fenris didn’t want Dorian to move, didn’t want him to do anything. 

In a flurry of limbs Fenris rolled Dorian over, pushed him down, face–first against the blankets and then pulled his hips up. Before Dorian could protest, Fenris pulled one of his hands back, held it at the small of his back. Both their breaths were fast, rushed. 

This. Fenris wanted this – to keep Dorian just like he was now, trapped, unable to move, ass raised obscenely just for him. 

He took his time running his eyes and then his hand all over Dorian’s skin. 

By the time he got to Dorian’s hips, his ass, he felt flushed, skin too hot and too tight. He wanted to take, to have more. 

“Not that this isn’t lovely, but I might fall asleep unless–” Dorian’s voice was muffled by the blankets and then broke off into pained huff, when Fenris spit and then pushed two of his fingers inside his hole. 

Fenris didn’t wait for any acknowledgement or permission, thrust his fingers in and out roughly. Pulled them out, spit again, pushed back in. He repeated all of that several times, and by then Dorian felt almost wet. The sounds spilling from his mouth were getting louder, moans only partly absorbed by the blankets. 

Sweat was prickling on Fenris’ brow. His cock felt heavy and Dorian’s looked heavy and painfully flushed, hanging between his thighs. 

Fenris spit again and fuck, he was done with this – he pulled out his fingers and replaced them with his cock. Pushed in and watched it slide in inch by inch inside Dorian’s ass. The tightness felt impossible. Fenris slid in slowly not for any consideration for Dorian’s comfort, he wanted to extend the feeling for as long as he could. 

When he was finally fully seated, he paused, then pulled almost all the way out and thrust back in sharply. The wordless sound Dorian made sounded as if it was punched out of him, so Fenris did it again, and then again. 

The heat and tight clenching of Dorian’s muscles drove him on towards an edge, pushed him close to it in minutes. He wasn’t sure what he wanted more, to fall over that edge, or maybe to keep going as long as he could, until the friction turned unbearable and Dorian was a whimpering mess under him. 

Though the latter was close to what was already happening – Dorian’s punched out sounds had turned into moans of unmistakable pleasure. Fenris pulled on Dorian’s hip until the angle changed, until he felt everything around his cock clench so sweetly. 

Fuck, Fenris didn’t want to wait, he could feel tightness pooling low on his spine, around the small of his back, felt his thighs tense. He let go of Dorian’s hand and took hold of his hair, pulled until Dorian had no choice but to get up, until he was straddling Fenris’ thighs, his back pressed to Fenris’ chest. 

Fenris kept him there with a bruising grip on his hips and fucked up into him until both their thighs were trembling with the strain. 

By the way Dorian’s breaths stuttered and his muscles clenched, he was close, he’d finish before Fenris. Just from being fucked. 

Guided by that edge of anger and violence that had started all this, Fenris took hold of Dorian’s cock. Held it at the base. Tightened his hold until Dorian’s moans turned decidedly unhappy. 

When Fenris came, stilled and waited for the feeling to run through him, Dorian swore under his breath and pushed back, tried to fuck himself on Fenris’ slowly softening cock. Fenris held him still and pulled out. Laid down on the blankets and Dorian fell down next to him, panting like he’d run for miles. 

“Oh, fuck you,” Dorian said with feeling, his voice hoarse. 

Fenris could hear the sounds of skin sliding against skin, Dorian’s breaths speeding up even more. He growled in that way he’d been told was especially threatening. 

With a bitten–off groan Dorian came. 

“That’s all it took?” Fenris asked, as much cool detachment in his voice as he could manage. He’d meant it as a warning, really, an order for Dorian to stop. Somehow he didn’t feel too disappointed by the very different result either. 

“That’s–” Dorian repeated with something that might have been outrage if he wasn’t coming off an orgasm that very moment. “Fuck you,” he said again, weakly. 

Fenris didn’t reply. He lied there for a while. Considered leaving for a different tent. It was still raining outside, and he was for the first time in days feeling pleasantly warm. He decided after some consideration that if anyone should leave, it would be Dorian. 

In the end neither of them did, and they fell asleep not quite touching, but side by side. 


End file.
